'The King's Speech' applauded by those who stutter

In a scene from "The King's Speech," Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the future Queen Mother, and her husband, King George VI (Colin Firth), practice a voice exercise with the king's eccentric speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).

Imagine standing in a long line of hungry customers waiting to place an order for lunch. After what seems to be forever, you reach the front of the line. You feel the glaring eyes behind you and hear the whispers of agitation urging you to hurry up. That, more than anything in the world, is what you want to do: hurry up and move on. But you have a stutter, and while a hamburger with lettuce, mustard and onions is a simple order, it contains your biggest verbal challenges -- the letters l, m, n and the words lettuce, onion and mustard.

To save yourself from embarrassment and others the wait, you order a burger with no letter m and you skip the toppings that you love but cannot say.

Tanya Banks of Livonia faces moments like this every day. If you can imagine how horrific it would be, than you can understand why she was so elated to see the public's reaction to the "The King's Speech." It tells the true story of how Britain's King Albert Frederick Arthur George, Bertie to his friends and B-B-B-Bertie to his cruel family, learned to speak more fluently for public addresses.

The movie has garnered critical praise including 12 Oscar nominations for best picture, lead actor, supporting actor and supporting actress. In the film, as in life for people such as Banks, the king's journey toward greater fluency is paved with torturous stares, glares and spats.

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" 'The King's Speech' has made my life better," said Banks, who is co-leader of the National Stuttering Association Beaumont Adult Stuttering Support Group. "More people know about stuttering. I am more open about my stuttering."

"It's wonderful," said Richard Merson, Ph.D., speech-language pathologist at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. Merson, who has been the coordinator of clinical research and special clinical projects at the hospital since 1989, said,

" 'The King's Speech' is drawing wonderful attention to the difficulties of speaking for people with a stuttering problem."

"The depiction is old, but that's OK," said Merson, referring to the movie's 1930-setting. "The actors' performances were so strong -- they did accurately portray the angst, anxiety and tenacity it takes to deal with stuttering. That has not changed."

What has changed since the days of King George VI is our understanding of stuttering.

That stuttering is caused by nervousness, for example, is a myth. People often offer up suggestions such as taking a deep breath or first thinking about what you want to say. In reality, this advice only makes a person more self-conscious and the stuttering worse.

"MRIs are now showing that people who stutter tend to use more of the right hemisphere (of the brain) than their left (which controls speech)," Merson said. "What we don't know is if it's a response to stuttering, or the cause of it."

Merson said there is evidence of a genetic link in stuttering.

"A 2010 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that about 60 percent of children who stutter have clear family histories of stuttering, but that leaves a substantial number of stutters that cannot be explained through genetics," according to a report by CNN. "About 70 to 80 percent of children who stutter recover spontaneously, experts say, but there is no way to know who will grow out of it and who will require a lot of extra help."

Of the more than 68 million people worldwide who stutter, many will use tricks to hide it.

"I would watch family movies and I was so ashamed of my stutter that I (would) record over parts of the movie that I was stuttering in so no one would see it," said Cathy (who prefers not to give her last name), who sometimes introduces herself as Anne because it is easier to say. "I regret that now, as it really ruined a few good recordings. And to this day, no one knows why that happened or who did it, but the shame of someone seeing that outweighed the need to preserve those memories.

"Some of the crazy things I have done to hide my stuttering (included) holding my hand up like a glove and pointing to the lower right when someone asked me where I am from; spending countless hours rerecording a message on someone's voicemail dozens of times until it was perfect; changing what city I live in; having nicknames for friends with names I couldn't say; and developing acronyms for places we (frequented) like S Bucks for Starbucks."

One of Cathy's turning points came six years ago. On the same day her grandmother became so ill that hospice was needed, her stepfather was involved in a horrible car accident. She knew she had to go to the hospital. Her mother would need her support. Instead of making a quick call to her boss asking for time off, she waited until later that night so she would get her boss's voicemail. This gave her the time she needed to record a message.

"I spent several minutes writing down what I wanted to say," Cathy explained in a story about life as a covert stutterer. "When I was ready, I called my boss's voicemail and left a message. I listened to it, rerecorded it, listened to it again, rerecorded it, over and over until I got it just right. Here I was worried about my speech when two members of my immediate family were barely alive."

That's when she realized she had to stop wasting so much time trying to sound perfectly fluent. Through the support of groups such as the National Stuttering Association, of which she has become an active member, and speech-language pathologists such as Merson, she has learned to be more accepting of her stutter.

"What I tell my students is that I'm not going to teach you to be fluent. I am going to teach you how to engage stuttering," said Merson, who has been working in the field for more than 40 years. Although proud of everyone in the Royal Oak support group, he cites an air traffic controller, fighter pilot and a high school valedictorian who delivered a moving speech to his graduating class as shining examples of how people who stutter can develop fluent speaking patterns.

"Nobody should suffer like the king did," Merson said. "We still don't know what causes it, but we do know a great deal more about it, and how to resolve it."

Cathy said her favorite scene in the movie is when the therapist sat in the king's chair, knowing it would upset (him). "The therapist knew that he had to get the king to realize that there was more to his speech than just stuttering -- that he had a voice and that what he said was more important than how he said it," Cathy said.

"For people who stutter, 'The King's Speech' brings understanding and acceptance -- offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for so many to talk about stuttering in an atmosphere that is supportive -- to sympathetic ears patiently waiting for each complete thought to end," said Jane Fraser, president of The Stuttering Foundation. "People who stutter can hold their heads high. This is the movie's greatest accomplishment."

"I know I have a voice," said Banks. "I am a person who stutters. I am not ashamed anymore."

For evaluations, treatment or referrals to the National Stuttering Association Beaumont Adult Stuttering Support Group, call Beaumont Stuttering Center at (248) 551-2100. The adult support group is free and meets every fourth Thursday of the month. Contact the National Stuttering Association at nsastutter.org. Questions regarding stuttering can be addressed by Beaumont's Stuttering Hotline at (248) 551-0003.